The past two months have been one fight after another with God. The future I thought I always wanted is not the one He has for me. The one He has revealed and set on my heart is one that is uncertain and, honestly, scary. When I first felt this pull two months ago, I felt that it would be a task for someone else to carry out because it was not for me. However, I began to feel the pull dig deeper as I prayed about it. As I dug into the cause, I realized that this might be a direction that God was leading me towards in my future. In my heart I slammed on the brakes. No, I could not, I told myself. I felt the task was too impossible, and it would mean sacrificing everything I held on to. I fought; but every time I denied, I felt my heart break even more for those who were lost. Then during one of our prayer sessions in Awakening last month, Ryan talked about surrender. The act of surrender is to completely give up to Christ.
Surrender: to give up, abandon, or relinquish
The act of abandonment and relinquishing is the act of giving God sovereignty in our lives. By doing this we are recognizing our need for Christ and allowing him to work in us to complete the tasks He has prepared for us. In Ephesians Paul writes,
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. – Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
The work Christ has prepared for us is our calling here on the earth. In order to complete that calling we need to be willing to submit to the sovereignty of Christ. This is hard because we naturally want to do what we want to do. Or, in most cases, we allow Christ a little of our lives, but hold back the rest. We give God only certain areas to work with. Yet, when He reaches for the rest, we run away holding whatever it is out of reach. These may be dreams, expectations, wants, desires, passions; it may be anything. We fear the unknown and uncertainty. We fear that if we give Christ that one thing, He will take it away forever, leaving us broken and unhappy. We fear if we die to ourselves and surrender to the will of God then we lose who we are. Yet, God is so much bigger than that. At the moment of surrender it hurts. These moments can be hard and full of pain. Hosea writes,
Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. – Hosea 6:1-2 (NIV)
When we are willing to submit to the process of being broken, there is a promise of being restored. Christ promises that even though it may be painful now, He will put us back together again. At the moment it may seem that the pain will not end, but it will. And the end result is a beautiful relationship and closeness with our Savior. Through this process, we are refined and shaped by the Creator. I have begun to see the joy and promise in my future and cannot wait to see where it leads me. The journey we walk, as a child of Christ, is one that is joyful, painful, healing, scary and peaceful. This journey can only be started when we simply surrender. Through surrender, the impossible is made possible through Christ.
Author: Rebekah Dennison